Glider chair revamp

Another project I ( well we... My mother helped) took on, was recovering the glider chair. I purchased fabric online at fabric.com. I found it in the clearance section and ordered 3 yards, for a total of $20.94! This covered the chair and the ottoman and we even have a bit leftover. There are tutorials all over the net on how to do it, but we basically traced all the actual cushions for a pattern.

We then simply placed the new pieces over the old, rather than ripping the whole thing apart. The only spot this posed a problem was the arms because they needed to clip back on the chair and placing the fabric overtop made the, a bit shorter. They took a bit of fiddling to get them back together.

On the ottoman, we made a cover almost like a fitted sheet for a bed. It can be removed and washed if need be. Also, we didn't need to rip it apart and use the staple gun.

It looks like a whole new chair now that it's done! And for less than $25.

 

 

Owl mobile

While putting together the new nursery I wanted to reuse as much as possible from little dude's nursery. I hated the idea of throwing anything out, but I also wanted something "new" for our new little guy. Always seems unfair that the second child (like myself) gets so many hand-me-downs. When I was going through all the baby stuff I found the old crib mobile and wanted to spruce it up.

Before, it looked something like this...

I really did not like it. I looked on etsy for some inspiration and really fell in love with all the felt mobiles. And honestly, they looked simple, but were so expensive... So as usual I decided I could do it myself. I went and purchased felt sheets (really cheap at dollar store or even michaels with a coupon) and embroidery thread. Otherwise, I just used old buttons, pillow stuffing and scrap fabric. For tools, I needed sewing scissors, embroidery needles and a hot glue gun.

I made a paper pattern for my owls. I had one for the main body, one for the stomach and one for the eyes. I used them as a template for each owl. I used felt for everything but the stomach circle, there I just used scrap fabric. After all the pieces were cut out I glued the stomach and eyes to the main body. I then added the detail to the back, the buttons and embroidery. I then stitched the front and back of the owl together, leaving about a 1 cm opening for the stuffing. Using a pencil to push the stuffing in tight and then finished sewing it closed. I then did the same for the stars and moon. I used the embroidery thread to hang it all from the mobile. I also took a long peice of scrap fabric to cover the long plastic bit. Just sewed the two edges together, flipped it inside out and slipped it on.

I love the way it turned out. It is however missing the moon now... Not strong enough for a 3 year old to hang off of...

 

Little Dude #2

We welcomed our newest addition just a few weeks ago ( a story I will tell later) and I'm very excited to show all the projects we did for his nursery... Which he has yet to sleep in....

Being cheap, I wanted to reuse everything for baby #1. At the same time, I wanted this little guy to have an equally impressive room. So, we (a lot done with my mother's execution and my ideas) took almost everything and revamped it. Just a bit of fabric and time for Most things.

After scouring Pinterest for ideas, I had a plan. I really wanted to do owls and use grey, mint and yellow... Hubby wanted monkeys, and this is what you get.... My inspiration board!

Oh, in case your interested, I used dulux paint app to make my board. It lets you colour match anything, add photos and write stuff. It's a great little app.

The top right photo shows the decals I purchased from Etsy at this shop. They were a great find. The lady had a similar design with just the owls and trees, but hubby really wanted monkeys, so I asked her to add some in and she made them custom for us. I did spend a bit more money on them than I would have just buying them in a local store; but these are such a great quality and look like paint once they are up. They also won't leave any marks on the wall when removed, yet aren't peeling at all. They were super easy for hubby to install ( I supervised and gave direction).

The walls were the first big project and then it lead to all the other little ones. I find that when doing a room, I find a jumping off point, a colour, theme, ect. And build from there. This time I started with colours, yellow, mint and grey and then went on to find a theme, owls. I'll blog about all my other projects separately and share some links and/ or give some DIY instructions where I can.

 

Little Dude's Room

I have been wanting to blog about my little dude's bedroom for quite a while. He is now 2 and a half, so no longer a nursery, but a big boy room. This was a big project and was a lot of work. We had just bought our house and there was still a lot to do. In this room, we had to pull the carpets and baseboards, the room was basically gutted. We were on a very tight budget for this job, after recently purchasing a home and expecting our first child as a young family.

Hubby started by replacing the carpet and baseboards. He went discs end of the roll place and got some carpet a bit cheaper, which hubby installed himself. He also managed to replace the baseboards himself. Then we needed to paint. This was one of the largest project in the room. I had this idea to do big squares and was inspired by colors on all the baby stuff I had gotten!

After we had colors picked out we wanted to do bedding and curtains. With the help of my mom we came up with some great ideas. We went to Ikea and bought a long beige curtain. We also purchased baby duvet, so we just needed to make a cover. When I was looking around at different bedding sets, they were all super cute, but, they were so expensive and included lots of things,such as bumper pads, that I wasn't going to use. Anyways, we also went to the fabric store and bought some fabrics. We brought along our paint chips and choose fabrics with the same sorts of colors. We weren't that concerned about what the patterns were, because the colors would tie it all together.

My mom took the long curtain from Ikea and cut it to a good length for the window, then with the rest She made the front of the duvet. For both, she cut bits of the colorful fabrics and sewed them in strips. We had also purchased a softer fabric, which we used for the back of the duvet. We used some big bright buttons to fasten it closed on the bottom. With the scraps she made some little pillows for the glider chair.

As for the furniture, The crib was a gift from the Inlaws, and we put an old bookshelf in the room, that my dad had made for my mom, years ago. Lastly, we looked everywhere for a dresser/change table. Everything was so expensive. I waited until babies r us had a big sale. When we went they were clearing out a lot of stuff. The one I got was more than 50% off the original price and then the guy loading it in our van took a chip out of the bottom, so we got it even cheaper. It was a great deal!

When we were traveling in the mountains shortly after little dude was born, we found these stuffed animal deer heads. If you can imagine, they were kind of cute. After much debating, we bought one (which we call ray). This however, turned into a bit of a joke, and now we also have a bear hear and a polar bear rug... Overall, I still love his room and like that it is a bit different than other babies room; there is not a "theme" per say, but, just colors that we liked.